Talk:writable

Computing definition

Hello Chuck,

Would you please explain why you reverted this change to the writable entry?

Dtrebbien (talk) 18:43, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Sure. Your new definition was too restrictive. What about things like writable memory or CDs? I suppose you could have added the new definition as a third sense, but you got rid of the old one, which was worse than no edit at all. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:51, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Okay.

The two reasons why I wanted to change this are (1) the current computing definition is grammatically incorrect and (2) even when corrected (such as by removing the word "data"), the definition would be a bit vague and perhaps indistinguishable from the first definition.

I think that in this case it makes sense to split the definition into two. One for the "having the requisite permissions" sense, which can include writable memory such as when bit 9 of a data segment descriptor is set (x86 architecture). Another sense is "capable of writing data to" such as EEPROM, flash storage, writable CDs, etc.

There is actually another sense that I thought of, which is more of a programming sense. It can be a synonym for mutable.

What about:

1. capable of being written
2. (computing) having the requisite permissions to write data to, such as a file or storage device

   The file is writable only for users in the admin group.

3. (computing) capable of writing data to

   I burned my family's vacation photos onto a writable CD.

4. (programming) mutable

Dtrebbien (talk) 13:05, 18 December 2013 (UTC)